More Than Friends
by MulberryFlower
Summary: There's something about calling Bill a "friend" which just doesn't feel like quite enough. TeaShipping oneshot.


**Writer's Notes:** I'm head-over-heels for Bill and Daisy together. They're so organic and straightforward and adorable. I've been aiming to do a TeaShipping fic for a while now, and there's a part of me which contemplated saving this until I had the chance to brush up a bit more, but there's no time like the present, right? Besides, I can always write more about these two. c;

It was a breath of fresh air to finally get this down on paper, and even though I only had a rough shape of it in my mind's eye when I started, I'm quite pleased with the outcome.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Pokémon.

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It's a long time coming, really. It crept along at the pace of a microorganism, forming itself in less tangible ways than what was usually expected, and more slowly and comfortably – _warmly_ – than one was usually told to anticipate.

Daisy comes from a family of researchers. Her grandfather is the foremost researcher in Kanto and a co-creator of the Pokédex. Her brother Green, a Pokédex holder himself, is regularly sent out into the field to do research and data collection. She earned her doctorate in Sinnoh and studied under Professor Rowan, a contemporary of her grandfather. And, like any true diplomat, she stayed by Bill's side during the second attack in Hoenn to look after him the way he'd once looked after her.

Bill, on the other hand, is a mass of inconsistencies. He somehow manages to be gangly despite not being particularly tall, and he's long since given up on the idea of taming his honey-brown hair into any form of submission. Despite his Goldenrod drawl, he still managed to charm his way into Celadon University and win the support of the doctoral research team for the funding which piloted the Pokémon Storage System. He's become a staple in the research community, and hardly a paper passes through one of Castelia University's multitudinous publications without first being sent to Cerulean Cape for gentle and thoughtful scrutiny.

So when the two came into contact, first in passing... and then for work... and then for coffee, both were well within reason to wonder if either of them possessed the know-how – or even the requisite social graces – to blend any sort of social relationship with a chaotic and often unstructured professional life.

"That Bill, he's quite the upstart," her grandfather tells her.

"She's become a bit of a tour de force in her own right," his mother reminds him.

Even Green notices the dynamic: "You two are cut from the same cloth, so why wouldn't you be friends?"

_Friends._ That word stays at the forefront of Daisy's mind for weeks. They are friends, of course. They're friends when they have a conference call to discuss the best way to care for an Eevee which emerged from Sinnoh's storage system with a heretofore unknown virus. They're friends when Rowan asks them to sit on the panel at an evolution symposium. They're friends when he first pays for her latte, then for her dinner, then when he invites her over to watch an old science fiction flick which she's never seen before. "It's a classic!" he raves. "You _hafta_ see it at least once!"

And yet, there are times... when she regains consciousness at the Indigo Plateau to find him braced over her, shielding her from the wreckage, oblivious to the gashes on his own face and arms; when he whoops and whistles louder than anyone else as she crosses the stage at her graduation ceremony; when he sets a cup of lavender tea on the coffee table as she awakens on his couch after one of their now-regular movie marathons... when the word _friends_ doesn't sit quite right with Daisy.

It finally occurs to her that the term _friends_ may not be a sufficient descriptor when they're bent over a topographical map of the Sinnoh region, trying to detect the exact boundary where the electromagnetic field around Mt. Coronet begins, when their foreheads collide in a surprisingly gentle manner. It isn't painful, and she's actually the first one to laugh – but then she realizes she hasn't made any motion to separate their faces. She averts her eyes while he hesitantly bites his lower lip. Out of the corner of her eye, she can sense about one-tenth of a second of hesitancy before he cups her cheek in his rough palm and presses his lips to hers. It's a soft kiss, but it lasts more than a few seconds and she's sufficiently impressed by how deft his motions are. He tastes like mint and honey, and she's more than a little dazed when he finally pulls away, exhaling noisily before breaking into a wide, boyish grin.

The notion that they may not just be _friends_ is further solidified a week later when he pecks her on the forehead before placing a steaming mug of citrus ginger tea in front of her, and again a few days after that when they're watching an old sitcom on his couch and he intentionally pulls her toward him and whispers "Is this alright?" as he touches his forehead to hers once more. She nods enthusiastically, because yes, it's more than alright – it's perfect and delightful, it's splendid, it's marvelous – and because, she realizes, there's no idea more than fulfilling than walking through life with her closest confidant at her side.

So the next time Green offhandedly introduces them as "My big sister Daisy and her friend, Bill," they share a private smile, because yes, they are indeed friends, but the term _friends_ barely scratches the surface of something big and grand, something vibrant and familiar, something so much more.


End file.
